Can the DPP replicate the miracle of the 2020 general election after another big defeat in local elections- BBC News 中文

Zhang Junhao, a professor of political science at Tunghai University in Taiwan, said to the BBC Chinese analysis: “This is still a local election pattern. Although the DPP is called a big defeat, the seats of county and city councilors have still achieved good results. So will this I don’t think it has much to do with the impact on the 2024 presidential election, it’s mainly about how the DPP can get back those voters who didn’t come out to vote.”

Zhang Junhao, who has studied Taiwan’s political parties for many years, believes that the DPP has retained a certain “confidence”.

In the past 10 years, every local election in Taiwan, the ruling party is prone to encounter Waterloo in local elections because of the burden of governance. For example, during Ma Ying-jeou’s administration in 2014, the Kuomintang lost the capital Taipei and Taoyuan. In 2018, when Tsai Ing-wen was in power, Kaohsiung City, which had been in power for 20 years, was captured by Han Guoyu, shocking Taiwan.

According to a number of polls in Taiwan, Tsai Ing-wen’s administration satisfaction before the election was still 50%, but in Taipei, Chen Shih-chung, the former commander of Taiwan’s epidemic prevention and control with high popularity, finally won only 31% of the votes. Many commentators said that Tsai Ing-wen’s governance satisfaction cannot be reflected in local elections, mainly because many potential supporters did not come out to vote.

Turnout is also an important way to observe the results of this election.

The overall turnout rate in Taiwan’s local elections this year was only 61.22%. The overall turnout rate in the 2018 local elections exceeded 66%. The turnout rate in the 2020 Taiwan presidential election was 74.9%.

Analyzing the defeat of the Democratic Progressive Party in this election, Wang Hongen, an assistant professor at the Department of Political Science at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, found that the Democratic Progressive Party lost more votes in densely populated urban areas with higher education and openness. It makes up for it in non-metro areas, but still not enough.

He published an article in “Thought Tank”, saying that the lesson that the DPP should learn this time is that in metropolitan areas where information and news are usually “overloaded”, voters focus on short-term issues, so “how to use (the DPP’s) active Supporters spread their voices and carry out rapid election campaigns to be able to conduct election campaigns in urban constituencies with information overload; the subsequent loss of votes is more likely to come from the DPP’s failure to make good use of active supporters who were willing to stand up and assist in the referendum They ended up causing a more significant loss of votes in these places.”

Japanese political scientist Ogasawara Xingxing said that this local election is regarded by many people as an outpost for the 2024 presidential election: “But I don’t think so. The results of the local elections are equivalent to resetting the political situation. The presidential election will start from now on.” It’s just the beginning. Well-determined candidates, and then making a good statement to Taiwan’s voters, will be the key to success or failure. Taiwan’s voters are looking forward to this part.”

Xinxing Ogasawara, who has studied Taiwan’s political party competition for 30 years and teaches at Tokyo University of Foreign Studies, raised a warning that there are sometimes arguments in this election that “disagreeing with the DPP is anti-democracy”. “Don’t love China” is the same way of thinking. If the DPP continues to insist on this kind of thinking, it will really change the regime.

In addition, Dr. Wang Hongen emphasized that in addition to the election strategy, the “foreign content farm” offensive in this election is very long-term and large-scale, “all over the large and small online communities in Taiwan, and successfully incited the dissatisfaction of ordinary people.” He emphasized Facing the next presidential election with only 400 days left, the DPP needs to have an active strategy to deal with it. “Content farms” usually refer to websites or communities that quickly and massively produce online articles and news to attract traffic for the purpose of controlling public opinion, leading trends, or earning commercial profits such as advertising fees. Some scholars say that such online farms from outside Taiwan often take the wind and try to influence public opinion.

Negative elections have always been the main axis of Taiwan’s elections.

Professor Zhang Junhao of Tunghai University recently analyzed that Taiwan began to implement general elections in the 1990s, but “based on the political development background of national identity and ethnic consciousness, the more democratic elections were promoted at that time, the more social conflicts were aroused.”

He said that in Taiwan, where elections are held almost every year, with the “low threshold for election” of multiple seats, smearing and intimidation, negative publicity and even buying votes are sometimes the main strategies for candidates to win the election. “Since a negative campaign is good for winning, it has evolved into a rational behavior in campaign strategy,” he said.

Zhang Junhao said that the most significant impact of negative elections is to make Taiwan’s “blue more blue, green more green, and middle voters more middle.” That magnifies the median electorate who votes for and has a huge impact on the election.”

In the 2022 nine-in-one election, the middle voters who do not have a specific blue-green position have been regarded by all parties as the key voting group that will influence Taiwan’s future elections. Their positions are fluid, sometimes voting based on “hate value”, that is, considering “whom to hate” or “disappointed with” more than policy. This phenomenon is considered by analysts to be an important indicator and hidden worry of Taiwan’s future voting.

For example, some analysts believe that the benefit of a fierce negative campaign is the “crazy election” of the whole people, and many candidates or political dirty points are ruthlessly disclosed. The downside is that the election becomes a political mobilization between major parties, where radical speeches appear, precious policy analysis or candidates who try to win with policies are sacrificed, and the living space of small parties is squeezed out. For example, the same-day referendum on same-sex marriage in 2018, or the referendum vote on the constitutional amendment of 18-year-old citizenship this year, were all tied to party elections on the same day, and became victims of fierce confrontation by political parties.

Under fierce party competition, candidates with obvious flaws in qualifications or character can even be elected.

For example, Professor Yao Liming of Sun Yat-Sen University in Taiwan said that after the election, he went to various social networking sites to observe the remarks and background of supporters of a certain mayor-elect. controversy or conduct. In contrast, he observed that the cognition of the candidate’s supporters is that under the intense blue-green attack and defense, the young candidate has achieved a lot, but is being bullied by the “adults” (the ruling party). This leads to so-called negative elections, in which policy issues are blotted out and votes are cast on who hates them the most.

In this election in Taiwan, there were corruption, homicide or people who were involved in gambling cases and intimidation were elected as county mayors and councilors. After being elected as a local chief, they said that their hype political views during the campaign could not be fulfilled. It once again triggered a storm and public opinion questioned the quality of voters.

Wang Hongen told the BBC Chinese analysis that political science studies talk about the quality of voters. Voter dependency (such as buying votes) is common in all democratic countries, but it will gradually be eliminated with economic development. That is to say, the richer the country and its people are, and the larger the population, the fewer tickets they will buy. He explained, “When we have a strong civil society where people can talk freely to each other, then the majority of citizens will debate the qualities of the candidate and choose a better one. So to criticize voters is to voters Each other’s business, not the politicians’ business.”

Wang Hongen emphasized that if a political elite is really capable enough, he can convince voters that he is a better choice. Persuasion itself is an ability of political elites. “Why should voters trust an inexperienced rookie? Political elites should prove their abilities by persuading voters, not complaining,” he said.

Taiwanese environmentalist and lawyer Zhan Shungui also wrote that in this election, the political checks issued by many candidates of the Democratic Progressive Party “still stick to the old hardware-style large-scale construction plan, and there is absolutely no resemblance to the economic construction of the KMT’s authoritarian period.” How is the model different? In the past 6 years or so, what has disgusted the people at the bottom is that many large-scale construction projects under the DPP’s governance, the transfer of benefits, forced relocation, and unfair distribution of benefits are often compared with those under the authoritarian rule of the Kuomintang. It’s obviously more than that.” He emphasized that the party had to conduct a self-reflection first, rather than looking for “war criminals” inside and outside the party to shirk responsibility.